Wolf father at the door, you don't smile anymore

[brilligspoons]

I've been watching Hannibal, and it's really fucking good. If you're into that sort of thing, you should check it out. The first couple episodes were good, and then around, like, episode six it got FANTASTIC and stayed there. Last week's episode was particularly good, and I've re-watched it a bunch of times already.

Actually, I just re-watched it a few minutes ago, and I'm having a lot of thoughts about Hannibal's motivations for messing around with Will's head. Obviously he's, you know, a serial killer and cannibal so he doesn't really NEED motivation. But the conversation that Du Maurier and Hannibal have at the end of the episode makes me wonder. Is he doing this simply to see how far he can push Will? Is he doing it to create a friend, as he keeps calling him, of sorts? Is he playing god that way, molding and shaping Will until he's completely reliant (more than he already is) on Hannibal? Or is it something else entirely? I mean. Du Maurier takes Hannibal's oil spill containment analogy and twists it, accurately I think, inferring that Hannibal wants to own Will - or his madness, anyway, but I don't think you get to own the madness without taking ownership of the man as well.

Personally I don't really buy into the idea that Hannibal's merely using Will as an experiment. I believe he genuinely cares about what happens to him, albeit in a sick, weird, serial killer way. But gosh, how devastating would it be to get to the end of the series and Will asks him WHY, and Hannibal's answer is an academic article on the results of his experiment? At that point Will would probably be so caught up in his dependency that he'd be ruined, more so than he already is.

And now I've made myself sad. :(

Comments

[momebie.livejournal.com]

Someone on my tumblr dash made a post that was just Gaslighting: The Hannibal story! Because SEEEEERIOUSLYYYYYYY. But oh god does it make for great television.

[brilligspoons.livejournal.com]

BASICALLY. It's just so fascinating (and awful) to watch. And the cast just play it so WELL, you know? God, I'm glad it got renewed. One season of this would not be enough.